Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The temp dropped about 35 degrees and I'm thrilled. Yesterday it was 90, today it's about 55, which is perfect as far as I'm concerned: jeans, tank top, and tatty red cotton cardie, here I come. Now, if only it would stay between 55 and 65 until autumn.

I started working on the Fountain Pen Shawl from the Spring IK. So far, so good. Wait.. dammit, I forgot all about lifelines. *sigh* Well, at least I haven't made any mistakes yet, but since I'm only on the second repeat of the second chart, I might well be counting my chickens before they hatch.

Your fairy is called Lichen Willowfilter

She is a caster of weird dreams.

She lives in stony places and tumbling wastes.

She is only seen on midsummer's eve.

She wears heather-coloured dresses. She has delicate green coloured wings like a cicada.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Last night was frustrating. I completely forgot that after Chart C comes Chart D, which must be completed before rearranging the stitches in preparation for working the heel flap. Well. Silly me. The second Lakeside sock is now a pile of rainbow-colored spaghetti because I couldn't figure out where the rearranged stitches had originally been, and since I couldn't figure out where the rearranged stitches came from, I decided to... well.. see above. *sigh* Second Sock Syndrome stinks... maybe someday I'll be able to work myself up to restarting and actually finishing the other sock, but right now I'm a little burnt out on Lakeside.In the meantime, I'm working on a re: view of the Kauni and will try to post it later this week.

So mom got her new laptop today. Her old one died a gruesome death and the replacement, much to her horror, was shipped from Shanghai. It was supposed to arrive tomorrow but got here four days earlier than expected, and FedHex sent it out on Friday while we were doing a bit of grocery shopping. Since no one was home to sign for it, they left us a cute little door hanger saying they'd try again on Monday.This is Monday. Right? Right. Mom and I were both home this morning. We have a large iron doorknocker with a very authoritative voice and a very large dog with a very authoritative voice, both of whom are excellent at letting us know when someone is at the door.Well, I went out with the dog at around noon, and when we came back to the door I discovered I hadn't seen the new little door hanger left by FedHex about two hours before I went out with the dog. I found this rather puzzling because we were both home, we have a doorknocker, and the dog usually lets us know when someone is at the door; mom was a bit put out when I showed her the note.What does she do--indeed, what does any sensible person do--but call FedHex and let them know that 1. We were home, 2. We have a doorknocker that works at least as well as any doorbell, 3. We have a dog who barks when people come to the door. 4. The driver had our phone number and could have called to let us know she was en route, which is what UPS does if they can't find the house.The response from FedHex was "Your doorbell must have been broken." Um. No. We don't have one! Repeat previous statements about dog and doorknocker.Well, says FedHex, it's not our fault the package wasn't delivered. The driver, it turned out, was put off by our oh-so-scary carpenter bees, and she got close enough to the door to leave us a little hanging tag, but not close enough to use the knocker. Hmm.. very puzzling indeed since the doorknocker is obviously attached to the front door, not suspended in midair six meters away from it. Mom spent about twenty minutes extracting a satisfactory explanation and/or assurances that the driver would make another attempt to deliver the package later in the afternoon, and when the driver finally did appear, the dog barked and mom sent me outside to accept the package. She's under the impression that I have a slightly more delicate touch, and my first words to the driver were, "I'm so sorry you had such difficulty catching up with us."No sarcasm there. Really. Really not. *ahem* She got defensive about the bees, so I pointed out that bees generally don't attack people unless they're being disturbed; I do admit, however, that the bees are pretty intimidating and do like to divebomb passersby (occasionally) while they're flying back to their burrows or out to look for floral fast food.Bottom line: Mom will likely be cranking out a scathing blog post about bad service and an obvious lack of strong work ethic where as certain company is concerned.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

1. I hate vacuuming, even when it improves the efficiency with which my desk fan circulates air. The noise is worse than accumulated dust, far as I'm concerned.2. The German word for "fountain pen" is Füllerfeder. O.o (Addendum: It's been brought to my attention that the word is indeed as above; so then, a fullerfederhalter must be some sort of fountain pen holder.)3. Visconti's sepia ink makes me think of hot fudge; it gets worse when it's been used to write on that creamy Moleskine paper. *sigh*4. I hate hot weather. It's gone from 45 to 91 in two days, and I like it not.5. It's never a good idea to put gelignite in your underwear before you go jogging--no, I can't say I've ever done so, but it just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. At. All.6. Why aren't candy thermometers more accurate? 7. The turtle walked today with all four legs.8. I hate stinkbugs and wish they would all go away.9. I seem to have developed Second Sock Syndrome, which makes the likelihood of my finishing the second Lakeside sock fall to practically nill. However, since I feel I can't start the Owl Socks until I finish the second Lakeside sock, it would seem the Owl Socks will never, ever, ever be knitted.10. I'm out of library books.Okay... so they're not really all complaints.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

that is my to-do list has finally, officially been decreased by one line.I was in denial over the weekend, I admit it."No, I'm not sneezing because I caught a cold," I said, "I just have a tickle in my nose."Two hours later I sounded like I'd been chainsmoking for thirty years. In the past three days, I've slept, used an entire box of tissues, and drunk a fishtank full of ginger ale; my nose is peeling, my voice sounds like a rusty squeezebox, and I still can't quite manage to do more than one or two things before I run out of gas. But somehow--somehow--I've succeeded in knitting that remaining sweater sleeve for the Tam Lin sweater, seamed it, attached it to the body of the sweater, and woven in all those evil little ends.I should be feeling gleeful and triumphant, even though the KAL ended in November. I should be feeling relieved that I now have a warm, snuggly sweater to wear in this horrendously damp, rainy, chilly weather. I should be feeling gratified because I used yarn I originally got for another project that I ended up deciding not to do. Instead, all I can think about is how crappy I feel and about the difficulties of blocking an adult-sized sweater without the benefit of a blocking board... and in damp weather.The upshot is that I now have one less project to worry about finishing, so I can now move on to other things. Like taking Nyquil and getting some sleep.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I'm currently engaged in a battle to the death with some elastic and the pair of Llyn y Morwynion socks, and it's not going quite as well as I'd hoped. Since I didn't follow the instructions for the cuff to the very letter, there's no actual opening to insert the elastic, which means that I've tried everything short of screaming in frustration (which doesn't work anyway). As of two minutes ago, I've tried a tapestry needle; this didn't work, since the elastic is too thick to go through the eye of the needle. Next I tried a hairpin threaded with the elastic; this resulted in several hairpins being shot across the room to the twanging sound of elastic at various tensions... Fail. The crochet hook is giving me somewhat more success, but it's still troublesome. I think next time I do this, I'll put the elastic in BEFORE I fold the cuff over and knit all the live stitches together, and hopefully not give myself gangrene in the process. Ahem.Addendum: YES! I am victorious. At least... for now. Hopefully my knots won't work loose so that I find myself in the middle of the grocery store with my socks around my ankles.